Snow Day
by Take this to Heart
Summary: Her brain had been scrambled with the day, and she was now disregarding the laws; she was stepping closer to him." James has always infuriated her...but what if deep inside, she's attracted by the rage? Anything can happen on a snow day.


**Disclaimer: I just realized that I haven't written a disclaimer on any of my stories so far :(. Total Accident, I swear. So: the amazing characters belong to J.K. Rowling, my personal idol. Enjoy. **

She liked it. Underneath the glaring words and the harsh actions, she liked it.

It wasn't clear to her exactly when she'd realised that she enjoyed the fierce screaming matches that shook the stone walls of the castle to a point of collapse. Maybe she understood as she was climbing out from underneath the rubbish and debris. Maybe the notion struck her as she was simply scribbling on her scroll, frantically trying to finish her work before she drifted mindlessly away into oblivion in the middle of the common room. Maybe it struck her in the heat of the moment. The point where she looked into his blazing hazel eyes, breathing hard and overcome with disgust.

Was it possible for disgust to fall out from under her?

To leave her hanging there was a base form of treachery; the lowest and easiest form of betrayal. Perhaps that's when she knew.

Regardless of when the concept crossed her brilliant mind, she knew it now. She was painfully aware of the fact that she had to bite back a beam, choke down a giggle, as James rolled his eyes or smirked arrogantly. She was frightened when she found that shooting insult after insult to the boy with messy hair brought joy to her day.

She liked it. That much was certain. No matter how often she lied to herself; no matter how many times a day she tried to convince herself to employ the simple anger she had used to feel; no matter how many times she glowered at his crooked smile, the point was set in stone. There was no going back. And oddly, she became okay with that. She became attached to the notion that James Potter, the toerag, would always be there. Through the lowest jabs and the highest shrieks, he'd always be coming back for more. Because he liked it too. And oddly, she became comforted by that. There was only one way to explain it. Lily Evans was losing her sanity. This theory was proven on the day it all came down.

It began as a simple enough day. She woke up, ate breakfast in the Great Hall, and studied for an hour before noticing that something was wrong.

She wasn't interested.

She, Lily Evans, the Head Girl, the one who others proclaimed to be the brightest witch of the year was incapable of staying focused on the work. Every now and then her eyes would drift to the window where you could see nothing but a pale white expanse. It wasn't blue like sky should be, and perhaps that should've been her second clue to crawl back into bed. At that moment however, she was merely calmed.

You could feel the energy radiating into the room, the different sensations of all the children playing in the snow banks out on the ground. Lily began to feel it. She began to feel intuned to the laughs you could almost hear floating upwards into the nothingness sky. The sky that shouldn't even be called a sky at all. She began to smile to herself as she pictured the first years having reckless snowball fights and the couples that would be ice skating on the Black Lake. And then Lily Evans made the worst decision she could've made. She decided to let it go for a day.

She pushed her homework aside and decked herself out in gloves and sweaters and scarves and a hat that her grandmother knitted just for her. She trekked down the stairs, her excitement heightened to a new level at the prospect of making snow angels in the newfallen snow.

It was later. She had skipped lunch and her stomach was growling hollowly. The hat that her grandmother had knitted just for her had long since been abandoned at the base of the beech tree, joining all the other student's shedded clothes. Her face was flushed from the cold and the exercise and something else she couldn't quite put her finger on. Then she saw him.

He had been out her longer than she. His face was a ruddy color, and his hair wasn't quite as wild as usual, damp from the ice he had frolicked in. She looked up at the nothingness sky; she still didn't understand it. It looked down on her, frowning, showing no prospect of the day, no good, an exact mirror of the trampled ground. She smiled at the chance of a fight. He had seen her too. She felt his penetrating look from across the field and suddenly he was next to her, as quickly as if he had apparated, which of course she couldn't rule out because anything seemed possible.

"Evans," he greeted.

"Potter," she sneered, brushing her tresses of firey hair away from her eyes.

He grinned cockily. "You look mighty pretty today."

And here was the opening she had been looking for. Here was the moment to have a raging spat. The wind screamed for her to stop, the trees moaned for her to simply smile at him and spare his pride, the ground urged her to walk away.

"Aren't you ever going to quit?" she asked snobbily. He laughed, a booming roar that echoed in the air and was the exact embodiment of what she had been looking for. And then it erupted inside her. He turned his eyes onto hers, and in that moment when they locked together, she needed him.

"I'm never going to stop, Evans. You should know that by now. I'm a persistent git, remember?"

She did remember, but she couldn't admit that. She couldn't admit anything at the moment, she couldn't even speak. The wide expanse of sky was pressing in on her, laughing "I told you so" over and over again. James' eyes changed. The were no longer sparkling with mirth, they were instead watching her with confusion.

"What, no retort?" he asked.

She felt flat, she felt flat, she felt flat. There was no other way to describe the deadened feeling inside of her. It was making her heart feel physically heavy. Any minute now it would drop down and crush her stomach. It didn't matter; she wasn't hungry anymore. She wouldn't get the triumphant sensation of trumping Potter today.

And still they stared on. The laughs and shouts and thuds of snow were slowly becoming muffled. James was gravitating towards her. It was against all of Gamp's laws and elemental transfiguration and every knowledgeable fiber in her being. It was against all the games they'd played, and all the issues they'd danced around. But it was against the day to move away from him now. It was against the sky which had become the ground and the ground which had become the sky and suddenly she was on her head and she was mighty dizzy and she's sure she would have collapsed if she hadn't been held upright solely by the intent of James' eyes. "Flower, what's wrong with you?"

He had said the hated nick-name with intention of getting a rise out of her. She knew it; he knew it; it was the rules. She couldn't take it anymore.

His eyes narrowed when she didn't respond. "Lily, do I need to take you to Madam Pomfrey?"

It was him saying her name that brought her out of her immobilized state. It rolled off his tongue so effortlessly, so magically, she wanted to hear it again and again and a thousand times more. She numbly shook her head. And then she searched for the words. She racked her brains for some kind of insult, some kind of poke to throw in his face, some kind of way to start the fire that had been put out with the burning sands of want. He was talking now, his face arranged into a show of masculinity and self-confidence. A mask she would have been disgusted with, but now merely felt endeared by.

"James."

She whispered his name intending at first to try it out, to test the waters herself, but somehow he had heard. He was gaping at her, a look of incomprehension of his face. Now she wasn't so sure that she had whispered it. Maybe she had screamed it. Maybe she hadn't said that at all, but instead something nonsensical. She tried it again, shivering at the way he was looking at her, drawing out the name purposefully, trying him out instead of the idea of a name. The silly title meant nothing to her. "James."

He blinked once. "What?"

She didn't know how to answer. And still they stared on. They hadn't broken eye contact, and she was still turned around and delirious, but suddenly it didn't seem to be such a big deal. Her brain had been scrambled with the day, and she was now disregarding the laws, she was stepping closer to him. She was clenching her hands into fists to calm the waves of fear crashing inside her. His eyes went soft.

"You've finally figured it out, haven't you?"

Her breath caught in her throat; she nodded. And then the dams broke. "Yes, Potter. I've figured it out. You and your bloodiness. You and your arrogance. You and...I'd actually figured out the game long ago. I was buying my time, marking my territories. I knew I could win. I liked it! And then came today when all my strategies went out the window. Here's the time to make the decision, and I don't even know what I'm deciding anymore! This is the day you and your bloodiness finally got to me--you--you and your--"

She let out a frustrated grunt, the sheer complexity of the situation rendering her speechless. She reached up her hands to pound his chest, the embers of the fire glowing feebly, but then he caught her wrists. He held on tight so she couldn't pull away; his touch was burning hot, just like the desert sands that had swept back through her.

"What if I don't want to play that game anymore, Lily?" he asked, looking at her with such sincerity, with such reverance that she had to fight to comprehend his words.

"What if I don't either?" she asked, shooting his own words back again. He was studying her, gripping her hands tighter by the moment, the moment.

The moment was arriving.

It was all still as the elemental laws imploded in the chill air.

They had met eachother half way and it felt so right and so wrong at the same time. His lips were moving with hers in such an ancient dance of frantic desire it was a wonder she wasn't at least a little winded. Instead she was soaring. She was absolutely flying and the air meeting her face was a million times better than the old fire. The sands were rushing and thrashing and burning her eyes. She smiled. James' tongue was at her lips; he was begging for entrance, begging to be hers, finally after all these years of waiting. She let him. It was the day it all came down only to send her back up into the air, spiralling and tumbling and grasping at straws and now his fingers were pressing on her hips, tickling her senses. His lips left hers and she instantly became enraged, her emerald eyes flashing with annoyance and greed. Then his lips were brushing her neck, softly, tantalizing, she smiled up at the nothingness sky, the nothingness sky that had promised nothing and yet everything had unfolded.

The nothingness sky that could have been a mirror, could have been the ground, could have simply been the absence of hope altogether; the turned around sky that was looking down on the snow day.

The snow day; the melting snow that the small children scooped into makeshift snowballs and kicked around.

Kicked around; the heart-broken best friend watching from behind a tree.

From behind a tree; Severus Snape.

Lily pulled James closer.

_a/n: So, this is different from anything I've ever written before, but I like it. What say you? _

_ --Take this to Heart_


End file.
